Bolan had determined that the cop's head wound was no more than a superficial scalp laceration. 'You must be wearing Mafia blood,' he concluded. 'You couldn't have bled all that from this wound.'
Lyons grunted 'It was gushing at me from every direction Damn, what a hit.' He groaned again and twisted about in a strong paroxysm of pain. 'Listen to me,' he hissed. 'My cover name is Autry… James Autry. I'm on loan to the Nevada authorities. You've got to protect that cover, no matter what. Get me? Don't let...'
Bolan brushed aside the plea with a gruff, 'Don't worry. We'll sweat it through. You strong enough to handle a weapon?'
'I guess so. Where are we?'
'Less than a mile from the hardsite,' Bolan replied. 'We're going to make a soft run for it. We just might make it clean if they don't have that chopper up there spotting for them.'
'Listen… if it goes sour… contact Pete O'Brien in Carson City Tell him I stuck to the cover story and the thing is still secure from my end. Tell him. Bolan.'
'Sure, I'll tell him,' Bolan promised. 'You think you're bleeding inside?'
'Yeah, I guess so. Listen, tell him it's the California carousel. Remembei that. California carousel.'
'Okay. Pete O'Brien, Carson City, California carousel — I've got it.' Bolan was twisting the top from a canteen. He lifted the weakened policeman's head and touched the canteen to his lips. 'Just wet your mouth,' he cautioned. 'Swish it around and spit it out.'
Lyons did so, and a moment later declared, 'I — I'm okay.'
Bolan fed a fresh clip into his .45 and pressed the gun into Lyons' hand. 'She's ready to roar,' he warned him. 'I'm going up front now. We could get into a firefight yet. If you hear someone whistling Yankee Doodle, that's the one you don't shoot at.'
Lyons chuckled weakly and said, 'You're always thinking.'
'Until I die,' Bolan assured him, and hurried forward to send the vehicle on its way.
Yeah, Bolan was thinking. He was thinking that all the rotten carcasses on that mountain were not worth one of the gutsy cop's fingers. He'd had his sights on San Francisco, and had stopped off at funnytown only to get in on the skim action and appropriate a few bucks for his flattened warchest.
But now he was getting'the impression that a lot more was transpiring behind the glitter of Vegas than a bit of lighthanded juggling of casino profits.
As soon as he could get Carl Lyons into competent hands, the Executioner intended to take a look behind that tinsel curtain.
Yeah, the dice were rolling — and from on high, it seemed.
Bolan was not a warrior to disregard directions from offstage.
And, in his combat-conditioned mind, the tussle for tinsel-town was already underway. The Executioner was closing on Vegas.
Chapter Three
Bolan's blood
For ten minutes the warwagon ran without lights, nosing quietly along a network of dirt roads and precarious trails, often coasting without power in the descents, halting frequently for a quivering recon of the surrounding terrain.
Not until they had completely quit the heights and rejoined the itate road was Bolan satisfied that there was no pursuit. Puzzling over this conclusion, he set a direct course for Vegas and announced to his passenger: 'Looks like we're clear.'
A feeble acknowledgement of the situation came from the rear of the van.
'You okay?' Bolan asked.
'Guess I'll live. And… Bolan…'
'Yeah?'
'Thanks.'
Bolan smiled and said, 'Sure.'
There was no need for thanks. Bolan knew that. And Lyons knew it. Bolan would have hauled the weakened man out of that mess even if he'd been a total stranger — even if he'd been a Mafioso There was no easy intellectual explanation for this facet of the Executioner's character. As a man given to deep introspection, he often puzzled over this seeming inconsistency of his survival instincts. And he understood only that sometimes — even sometimes in the heat of a firefight — an inner command would cause him to spare a particular life rather than take it. Bolan had long ago learned to trust his instincts, and normally he followed those inner urgjngs. as he had done back there on that mountain road, even though, at that moment, he had been entertaining the possibility that the prisoner was simply another Mafioso being 'disciplined' by his own family Even though, at that moment, Bolan's longshot for survival was pinned to a very precise game of numbers.
So once again he had followed inner direction, and again it had proved out right. But… would it always be so? Could this 'inner command' be nothing more than an inherent and growing weakness, a flaw in the combat character which would eventually destroy him? Could it represent a deeply stirring rebellion against the hell and 'thunderation' which had so characterized his life these past few years? A shrinking from his own fate?… A whimpering reach for sweetness, mercy and absolution?
Bolan grunted and flung away the idea. Introspection, a review of one's deeper motivations, was a good thing up to a point. But too much questioning of one's self could send a finely tuned mind into disarray, also — and what greater flaw could there be than that? Hell, he had known what he was getting into when he declared this lousy war… he was no greenhorn in this business of impossible warfare, and he'd known that he was re.nouncing all the good and simple things that made life worthwhile,.
He had not, of course, expected to survive this long. He had overestimated the enemy and underestimated his own life expectancy. His last mile, he'd called it — and what a long, grim and bloody trail that last mile had become. What a lonely one. Yeah, that was the worst part — the enforced aloneness, the total isolation from the things that made life good.
He had learned to live with blood and thunder, with constant jeopardy and the ever-present specter of sudden and violent death. If he should live that long, would he ever become accustomed to the role of total outcast? Of course not. And, he realized, he had no right to even expect it. This was part of the price he'd accepted, and this was the 'life' that he would push to the absolute outer limit, to the last staggering step of that final bloody mile.
The life? Wasn't every strike against the enemy a lifetime of its own? Sure. Sure it was. The Executioner had certainly lived more lives than one. And, as part of the tab, he had died many deaths. His first death had been back there in Pittsfield; he'd died first with Mama and Pop and Cindy. He had died again with Chopper and Flower Child, Whispering Death Zitka and Bloodbrother Loudelk and Boom-Boom and Gunsmoke and Deadeye Washington — that fantastic Los Angeles death squad — and he'd lived to die again with Doc Brantzen at Palm Village, with the little soldada in Miami and the cute kid who'd become a Mafia turkey in New York. Deaths, yes, very real deaths for some very real and dear people, and deaths of the soul, also, for Mack Bolan. And how many deaths could the soul survive?
And how about those others — the symbolic deaths — those very real lives which Bolan dared not approach again for fear of carrying his plague to them? Johnny Bolan and Val and all the one-life friesds he'd picked up and hastily dropped off along that bloody mile of survival — one-lifers who must forever remain in the shadows of Bolan's multi-life form of existence.
Even Lyons… even a toughi cop like Carl Lyons… Lyons had a multi-life existence of his own to worry about.
Bolan sighed and lit a cigarette.
'You want a smoke, Sergeant?' he called back.
'I quit,' came the weak response. 'Haven't you heard that it's hazardous to your health?'
Bolan chuckled. His 'guest' was sounding more like his old self. It would take more than a bit of pummeling around to put down a cop like Carl Lyons. He took a deep drag from the cigarette and sent the smoke toward the
